OK, I’ll concede it’s a little weird to name your new High Def Sony camera after the Hindu Goddess of Luck, but when you’ve paid as much for it as my dive buddy has, I say you can pretty much do what you want with it.

We also name our Scuba tanks, too, but we won’t go into that here.

Suffice it to say that after much waiting [and more waiting] for Gates to finally release their underwater housing, we finally got to take it into the water on Saturday, christening it on the Lady Yukon. The thing in its housing is the size of a small Volkswagen with handles on either side. And, it’s almost perfectly neutrally buoyant and can be held with one hand. Wow.

Oh, and the Scuba Do is back in service too……..Yee Ha!

Dive #1 [Actual: #710]

Location: Wreck Alley, Yukon

Time: 11:30 am

Max Depth: 100 ft.

Surface Conditions: calm

Viz at Depth: 25 ft. +

Temp: 56 F.

Mix: 32%

Dive Time: 45 mins

Critters seen [and videoed]: uncountable schools of Blacksmith, Black Surfperch, Rubberlip Surfperch, Painted Greenlings, Senoritas, Gopher Rockfish + YoY [Young of the Year, with white spots], Cabezons and ISIFS [I'm Sure I'm Forgetting Something]: oh, yeah: like huge Black Sea Nettles…..

OK, so motoring out under warm, sunny skies to Wreck Alley Sat. morning with the 2 Charleses [Prof. Charles and Charlie] and NOAA Jim, we encountered something in the water that was an excellent augur for what was to come later: large, Black Sea Nettles, some up to 3 ft long, floating on the surface: we saw 4 on the way out and one GIANT one on the way back, which thanks to some gutsy videoing on Barbara’s part, we were able to get some excellent ‘up close and personal’ [some might say bit 'too' up close] footage of.

Because it was so extraordinary, and so you don’t have to wade through two dive reports to get to it, I’ll present it [ and the video] here, then you can go back to the reports later if you want to.

So, on the way back from Wreck Alley, we began to see more of the large, purple Sea Nettles drifting along on the surface, until eventually, we came across this absolutely HUGE fellow, nearly 4 ft long, from bell to tip of tentacles; so, we slammed on the brakes, so to speak, and screeched to a halt next to him. I took the helm, while Barb grabbed Lakshmi to record the event.

At first, she tried simply lowering the tiny Volkswagen and its housing over the side of the boat, into the water, to record this guy at the surface as he drifted by, but Lakshmi was so heavy, that it proved to be a back-breaker, so I, being ever the Master of the Obvious, suggested she zip up her dry suit, grab a mask and just jump in the water with the camera, which she did. Splash! with just mask, suit and fins on: right next to this rather scary-looking 4 ft. long Black Sea Nettle.

Unfortunately, in her haste to capture footage, she forgot a weight belt, which meant she couldn’t dip down under the surface too much, but she vented the suit and was able to get rather alarmingly close to this huge fellow and film him in all his glory, which you can see here:

URL: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6051089875946375881&pr=goog-sl

early sections of the footage are a bit choppy, due to the bobbing up and down effect of being on the surface, as well as it being the first day with a new and very large and unwieldy camera housing, but once it settles down, you’ll see some extraordinary, up-close footage of this puppy.

You’ll note his bell is torn as well, by objects or creatures unknown, of the deep.

I don’t want to think about who or what would mess with this guy–do you? Unless it was just a chance encounter with a boat propeller.

OK, now back to the dive report.

So, tying up to the Stern mooring buoy of the Yukon, we all suited up and teamed up, with NOAA Jim and Charlie making one buddy team and me, Barb and Prof. Charles the second, although, as I was quickly to realize down below, it was really: me and Charles as one buddy team and Barb and her New Toy, the other team.

Actually, since it seemed to take forever and a day to get the new ‘toy’ prepped and in the water, Charlie and NOAA Jim decided jump in first and ‘meet us down there.’ It’s not a good idea to keep Jim waiting to go diving. Trust me on this one.

We ended up meeting them, coming up at the end of their dive, as we finally descended, 30 mins later.

But, they had scooters to play with, so they didn’t care.

Anyway, so Prof. Charles and I formed a natural buddy team, as Barb did with her camera and the three of us [the 4 of us?] dropped down the Stern line to the bottom and made our way past the Mortar Bay towards the Rear Guns, where I encouraged Prof. Charles, who had a small handheld digital camera with video capability, to film Barb as she cruised about, attached to this huge behemoth of a housing, slowly turning it this way and that to capture video footage. I thought one photographer filming another would be kinda cute.

Huge schools of Blackmith fish flitted in and around us as we cruised towards amidships.

We paused at the Rear Guns, now completely covered in White Metridia and Strawberry Anemones, glowing a rich white and pink in the early morning light.

Schools of Black and Rubberlip Surfperch cruised about lazily between us, gazing curiously at us.

We dipped under the ship to check out the Barred Sand Bass who usually reside here, before slowly ascending up towards the superstructure in front of the guns, also covered in White Metridia and Strawberry Anemones.

I guess wielding the huge housing caused Barb to use more air than anticipated, because soon she was giving us the turn around signal and Prof. Charles and I agreed and we began the long trek back to the Mortar Bay.

Along the way, Prof. Charles and I penetrated one of the cutouts and then descended down into the big hold in the bottom of the Mortar Bay, emerging to Barb’s surprise, through a small cutout at the far end, which didn’t look large enough for one diver, let alone two, to fit through, but our slim, girlish figures let us slide out, but not before I accidentally triggered another one of my now [in]famous ‘California Sea Cucumber landslides’ inside, causing it to ‘rain’ Sea Cucumbers all around us. They must really hate me.

Ascending slowly up the anchor line, Barb was able to get some good footage of everyone coming up below her and some of the schools of fish, which came out really nice.

After a leisurely lunch of cheese sandwiches, salt and vinegar chips and fresh picked cherries, it was decided that we would stay over Lady Yuke for a second dive.

Dive #2: [Actual: #711]

Location: same

Time: 1:30

Dive Time: 35 mins

Viz at Depth: 25 ft. +

Temp: 56 F.

Critters: same as above

Mix: 32%

OK, since this was the second dive in the same location, I’ll just mention the details that were different. so as not to drag this report out too long.

This time, Prof. Charles, I, Barb [and the Camera Housing the Size of a Small Car] dropped down the hull side, down by the huge propellers, covered in White Metridia and cruised along Graffiti Alley, before ascending slowly up over the hull and the Miniature Kelp Forest on the Starboard side and doing the ‘Wheeee!’ thing down over the superstructure, parachuting down just in front of the Mortar Bay, startling a rather large school Rubberlipped Surf Perch.

Then, Prof. Charles and I decided to be a bit adventurous and when Barb wasn’t looking, we snuck around to the hole cut out in the Stern side, leading to Burma Road and, seeing light streaming through the skylight the next room down, carefully made our way through, until we found ourselves in the adjacent chamber, where we then made our way up about 8 ft. until we popped out in the miniature Kelp Forest above on the Starboard side, gently swaying in the current, where we surprised Barb, who had been looking for us on the other side of the Mortar Bay. BOO!

Unfortunately, being the consummate air-hog that I am, even a High Pressure Steel 100 is no match for my bellows- like lungs, which always think I’m using a HP 120, and to my chagrin, I looked down to see I was running embarrassingly low on air.

So, sadly, I signaled Barb and Prof. Charles that I was heading for the surface and that they should stay behind and enjoy themselves with Barb’s New Toy, which they were happy to do, waving at me as I made my way up the line and towards the surface.

Altogether, it was a great day on Lady Yukon, topped off with the amazing close encounter Barb had on the way back with Giant Sea Nettle, with the video footage to prove it.

PS: she obviously has footage from the Yukon dive itself, as well, but judging from the length of time it took to edit and add music to the Sea Nettle footage, which is only a few minutes long, it may be a few months……er, a few, days, before that gets edited and posted.

As Dr. Bill will no doubt corroborate, each minute of shot video footage seems to take an hour [at least] to edit; and when you shoot a lot of video, you find that editing takes up most of your free time.

Another day in Paradise, folks!